Wired's interview with Eric Schmidt a few months back convinced me that they'd abandoned the word "Don't" from their famous slogan. Perhaps Larry Page and Sergey Brin have pencilled it back in while he wasn't looking.

Google probably just explain to the shareholders how much worse it would be if they were caught up in some leak scandal involving China at the moment. They can't afford to be seen to do nothing with all the privacy concerns and distrust building up around them especially as they could have looked complicit/negligent/incompetent.

mal, as it's gmail that was accessed i'd say they had the email subject line but not the content of the email itself.

Branching out to China proved less profitable than google originally thought. Dealing with all the restriction on their business doesn't make it their while. Instead, they're going to expand the business models they have in established territories and consolidate their power there. All the while spin it as a moral decision so as not to alienate investors.

I don't think anyone in China even uses google, unless it's through a proxy to the American version. China already has plenty of its own search engines and they're much better at finding dodgy mp3s and pron than google is.

jellyhead wrote:
mal, as it's gmail that was accessed i'd say they had the email subject line but not the content of the email itself.

If that's true (and I suspect it is) then the sentance published by the BBC is very misleading. Email subject lines are part of the email message - they're certainly not account information as the comma placement suggests. Account information can also include real name, date of birth and links to another email account. Or they do just mean someone took a screenshot?

I can understand them not being explicit if they don't know, but to relay technically incorrect information isn't very good.

It's a huge story. If anything comes of it (they may backtrack yet) it's reversing what was regarded as unstoppable business development. The BBC analysis bit sums it up:

The assumption has always been that the China market is too big to walk away from.
Foreign firms accept the difficult commercial conditions, the tough competition, government interference or censorship because the prize is worth it.

The story has been updated with some more figures:

Nearly 340 million Chinese people now online, compared with 10 million only a decade ago.

Last year, the search engine market in China was worth an estimated $1bn and analysts previously expected Google to make about $600m from China in 2010.

But unlike most markets, Google comes second in search in China.

It has 26% of the market compared with about 60% controlled by market leader Baidu, which has a close relationship with the Chinese government. Yahoo has 10%.

Microsoft has a tiny share of the Chinese market with its new Bing search engine, but in December the technology giant said it was committed to China, calling it "the most important strategic market".

I'm not sure what they could be thought to gain by blowing $600m on a publicity stunt, or by simply giving up on the basis of restricted opportunity, and thus allow Microsoft to pick up $600m worth of restricted market.

Plenty of time for them to backtrack and look stupid yet, but I don't think this story is as unsignificant as some think. It could develop further yet, as other companies are allegedly affected, and the secretary of state has become involved.

Google is just pissed because they got hacked. Censorship part is just the PR machine. Yahoo seem to be contemplating leaving too. Microsoft must be rubbing their hands. I think this will blow over eventually. Is there really anything to stop China banging at the door anywhere round the world. There was a rumour that China was actually trying to hack their spy network that allows the governments to access user profiles and history under a warrant rather than just a few human right activists.